


All My Love (I Give You)

by DayandKnight



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: AU, F/M, Influences also from the Snow Queen, Inspired by: Beren and Luthien
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-25 20:35:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30094755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DayandKnight/pseuds/DayandKnight
Summary: A mysterious and ethereal woman saves Miles' life when he's caught out in a deadly Briggs storm. No matter the cost, he can't seem to forget her and move on; he'll spend lifetimes looking for if he has to.
Relationships: Olivier Mira Armstrong/Miles
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	All My Love (I Give You)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Illidria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Illidria/gifts).



> Hello lovelies!
> 
> Thank you for clicking on yet another fic of mine! I hope you enjoy. :)

Miles was lost--not slightly turned around or a bit confused--but the type of lost where simply heading “up” as he had been was no longer possible. The Briggs mountains, inhospitable at the best of times, had been seized by blanketing snow and harsh winds that bent the trees and obscured the world in swirling white. He kept putting one foot in front of the other in the desperate hope he could somehow find his way on the path to the Drachman border pass.

He’d been foolish, he realized not for the first time, to think he could make it into Drachma alone, and from Drachma, Aurego’s northernmost border. There was nothing out here for him, but cold that ate away at his bones and the certainty of death. He was not certain he would go so far as to prefer the camps where his people were being rounded up and slowly, surely, disappearing from, but he thought he’d trade this frozen hell for the warmth of an Ishvalan night, sleeping on the crowded ground of a makeshift pen or not. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to the icy mountain as he stumbled for what might have been the tenth or hundredth time for all he knew. His mother had begged him not to go, had thought she could hide him away instead, but the risk to her and their family had been too much and he’d left her with a note and a promise to write when he was sure it would be safe. 

That letter would never come, he knew then as he struggled to push himself upright. By chance, he struggled into the thick branches of a stooping tree and he clung to it, breathing heavily in the slight reprieve. He would freeze solid even in the shelter of the tree’s arms, and reluctantly he stepped out to meet the same fate in motion, with, he hoped, bravery rather than foolhardiness. 

As suddenly as the beating storm had begun, the air stilled around him. It wasn’t that the blizzard had ended, but a path had opened before him, the wind and snow above and around, but before lay calm. Certain he was reaching his end, he moved into the stillness. A glimmer of light twinkled between the branches of trees not yet heavy with ice and he pushed the evergreen limbs aside, moving toward it with the curious bravery of a dying man. 

She was robed in the night sky, deep blue silk swirling around her, as she danced softly on the bed of needles, the stars themselves winking and trembling along the length of her gown, their silvery beauty matched only by the glistening of a golden mane that spun and hung, defiant of gravity itself. There was no music that he could hear, but she danced as steadily as though choreographed by Ishvala themself, ice creeping from where her silver tassel-tipped slippers touched soundlessly, to spread across the unfrozen ground. 

When she extended a pale hand, skin glowing softly like the moon and a puff of white breath dancing across her palm, fractals of snow fell softly on the green branches, weighing them with icicles until they began to droop. He stood still, feeling that one of her ice blades had pierced his heart where he stood. 

Her dancing feet carried her further into the calm and, on clumsy feet, he followed. The thin sheen of ice cracked beneath his feet, and her dancing stopped. A single glimpse of blue eyes staring wide at him was all he saw before she fled. He gave chase, desperate and overcome with a pain he had never known. The fatigue of his journey seemed to leave him as he pursued, but every soft glimmer led him deeper into the trees, moonbeams disappearing with the soft whisper of her silken gown, or else the rasp of branches.

At last, he could run no further and doubled over, gasping for air. She was gone, if she had been there at all, and he was no warmer or less lost than before. He straightened slowly, and ran a hand over his face. He could take comfort, he thought bitterly, that he had given it his all. Raising his head he realized that he once again saw light; not the soft twinkle of moonbeams and starlight, but warm bright spots of orange light. Praying to a god he was not sure he believed in he stumbled forward into the wailing wind and near-blinding whiteness.

The yurt found his face before he did. He staggered, the new sting of his face’s enthusiastic greeting of the taught animal hide barely registering with all that the wind and snow had done to abrade his skin. He felt around the rounded wall, until he found what felt like an entrance and he fumbled desperately in an attempt to gain entrance. The layers of fur covering the entrance lifted, but he did not perceive it, falling forward into a dark and silent stupor.

Voices in a language he didn’t recognize were humming around him when he blinked slowly into awareness. The room was dim, lit only by a fire and after the whiteout of the blizzard he had to squeeze his eyes open and shut several times to make out the blurry shapes of the voices’ owners. He had been divested of his garments and was pressed against a similarly unclothed body, furs wrapped around them, and his feet and hands were submerged in icy water, being rubbed by two shapes that he blinked slowly into women. One was elderly and stooped, her left eye a glossy blank white, the other looked taller and darker haired, appearing closer to his mother’s age.

The younger one looked up and said something he could not comprehend in a tone that was warm and motherly. 

“I-”

“You speak Amestrian?” The voice emanated from beside him, masculine, rough, and accented. “Yes?”

“Yes,” he exhaled, twisting a little to see he was sharing the furs with a bear of a man with a mohawk and long dark braid. “Where-?” He fumbled. “Who?”

“You can call me Buccaneer,” the man said, “and you are in my home.”

“Ah,” replied Miles, because the situation was no less clear. 

“We apologize if your present circumstance alarms you. You were near dead and we have only our ways to revive you.”

It occurred to Miles then to be embarrassed, by his nakedness in a stranger’s home, and apparently, bed. “I appreciate it,” was all he could say, grateful to be rescued, however awkward he now felt. 

The elderly woman spoke, gesturing to him. He looked to Buccaneer for a translation. “She asks what brings you here, red-eyed one. You are not a spirit nor one from the lowland.”

“I was trying to cross into Drachma.” 

Buccaneer relayed this to the woman and she shook her head, tapping a carved cane on the ground sharply, saying something in a disapproving tone. 

“You are not Drachman,” Buccaneer translated, “why do you seek their lands?”

“I am an Ishvalan,” Miles explained, not knowing if they would know what he meant, “the Amestrian government is determined my people be exterminated.”

Buccaneer translated this, too, in a deep tone and Miles could see a familiar anger and understanding in the women’s eyes. 

“We do not know of your tribe, but we know the ways of the lowland soldiers.” The elderly woman took his hand, not to ease the frostbite but in a kind gesture, as Buccaneer relayed her words. “We will shelter you through the storm, and when it passes, see what can be done to aid you, -?” He trailed off questioningly.

“Miles,” he replied quickly. “Thank you.” Miles bowed his head to each of the women in turn. “May Ishvala bless you.”

The women and Buccaneer spoke to each other in their own language for a few minutes, before the woman bundled themselves up in fur shawls that obscured them nearly completely from head to toe and went back into the storm. 

The big man climbed out of the bed and pulled on a tunic and trousers. “Here-” he thrust a similar tunic at Miles, “-until your clothes dry.”

The dyed wool garment dwarfed him a bit, but he pulled it on gratefully, scooting close to the fire. “Thank you, Buccaneer.”

“Hmm.”

“Who were those women?”

“My mother and grandmother, the healer and chief elder of our tribe.”

“I see.” 

“So, red-eyed one,” Buccaneer turned to him, dark eyes narrowed with suspicion, “how did you find your way here from the Drachman pass?”

“I don’t know,” Miles admitted, staring back just as intensely, “I got lost in the storm and-” he broke off, as with a shooting pain, he remembered the dancing woman’s unearthly beauty. 

“I have climbed up this mountain many times,” Buccaneer said, “and the way is treacherous and known only to a few. You would have me believe you came here by mistake?”

Miles frowned tiredly. “There was a woman. Well, I think there was.”

“A woman?” The big man was frowning at him.

“I think, perhaps, you would call her a snow queen?”

Buccaneer snorted dismissively. “Amestrian travelers who do not understand our ways invented this so-called Queen of Ice, because they cannot read the mountain as we can. Snow delirium and superstition got to your head and nothing else.”

Miles nodded, both because it was the only thing that made sense, and because he could not articulate the sense of breathless, painful, wonder that had overcome him at the sight of her.

Buccaneer turned to the fire and reached carefully to pull a long-handled pot from the hearth. “Are you hungry?”

“I have food in my pack-” 

“That wasn’t the question.”

Miles shifted, wondering if he had accidentally offended the man by unknowingly violating some custom. “I am hungry, yes.”

“Here,” Buccaneer thrust the pot at him, “eat.”

There was a carved wooden spoon in the pot of what appeared to be some form of stew and Miles delved into it gratefully. “Thank you, Buccaneer.”

“We Ursai do not bring outsiders into our homes to starve them.” There was a bit of defiant pride in the big man’s voice, challenging some stereotype that Miles had never heard.

“I thank you all the same,” Miles murmured politely. 

Buccaneer frowned at him and then sat on a rug beside the fire. “Where do you hail from?”

“Amestris’s East City, near Ishval.”

“And you’ve come all this way to go to Drachma?” 

“Through Drachma is the plan, to Aerugo. They are less prejudiced against my kind there, or so I have heard.”

“Drachma guards its borders well, they will not let you pass.”

His stomach sank. “I have to try; I have nowhere else to go.”

The big man gave him a long look, but said nothing else. Miles ate slowly, grateful for the warmth and food, but realizing with dread that he was only borrowing time.

\---

When the storm subsided, a day or two later, Buccaneer took him to meet with the tribal council, in the center of the small yurt village. Others had already been through there many times and the snow was trampled to a hard, slick, surface. Buccaneer’s grandmother, Attilqah, Miles had been told, stood between four others, two men and two women. They had an aura of wisdom in their stooped postures, crowned with silver hair and etched in the wrinkles of their aged faces. Miles felt he ought to bow, but he copied Buccaneer in standing before them and politely bowing his head for a moment. 

A man older than Buccaneer, but far younger than the elders, stood to the side to translate and they were ringed all around by the Ursai people clad in furs and embroidered caps and shawls. Deep blue and purple seemed to be especially important colors, appearing on the tiniest of children all the way up to the elders. 

“Tell us all how you came to be here,” the man translated for Attilqah when she spoke. “And what you seek from us?”

Miles looked carefully from elder to elder as he spoke, trying to split his attention equally. “My people, the Ishvalans, were annexed by the Amestrians-” the translator stopped and was looking at him quizzically. He wasn’t sure if it was his southern accent or his language that was tripping him up, so he tried again. “The lowlanders took over our land and put strict rules on us.” This was met by nodding and muttering from the crowd, and encouraged he pressed on. “Recently, they began to round us up in camps and-” he faltered a moment, “-kill us. My parents and siblings look Amestrian, but I don’t. My eyes-” he pointed at them, though they could have hardly failed to notice the distinctive color, “-mark me as Ishvalan. I came out here in the hopes of crossing into Drachma so no one would know my father’s heritage, and my family would be safe. I got caught in the storm and lost. If I hadn’t stumbled into your village, I would be dead.”

The elders looked at each other and spoke quietly for a few moments. After what felt an age to Miles, one of the men turned to him and began to speak. Miles glanced at the translator, anxious, but forced his gaze back to the elder.

“Our souls are heavy for you, red-eyed one. If you will accept our help, we will ask our ancestors how we should proceed.”

Miles glanced at Buccaneer who nodded. “I will gratefully accept.”

The elder women approached the fire in the center of the ring and one by one, dropped handfuls of what looked like seeds or perhaps small bones into the fire. They watched the smoke after each handful, murmuring to each other. Bewildered, Miles looked to Buccaneer again. The big man was red-faced and staring out over the roofs of the circled yurts.

Suddenly one of the women crowed loudly and an eager murmur went through the assembled tribe. She spoke loudly and this time it was Buccaneer who leaned down to translate for him. “She says the ancestors wish you to stay with us for a season or more.”

“Really?” He felt a lump in his throat and the tears that he’d been fighting down welled up once more and he blinked quickly, trying to clear them.

He needn’t have asked, because suddenly people were all around him, speaking quickly in Ursai. A few, mostly younger, switched to Amestrian. They wanted to know more about him, what it was like in the lowlands, would he come to their yurt for a meal? 

Buccaneer’s mother politely backed them all off, speaking in her warm tone and smiling gently. “You’ll have to visit everyone at some point,” Buccaneer explained as she, with a seemingly universal mother’s gesture, began herding them off to another yurt. “But for now, she wants you to rest some more.”

Buccaneer, it turned out, also had a sister who spoke Amestrian, but she was shy, hanging back and translating for her parents rather than speaking to him. 

“Are you recovering well?” Was his mother’s first question. 

“Very well, thank you, Ma’am.”

She smiled at this and then pointed to herself and said slowly and clearly. “Muna.”

For a moment, Miles was caught off-guard. Ishvalans never gave their true names on first meetings and often wouldn’t use names at all until a relationship was established. Still, he smiled at her and repeated his thanks, this time using her name. 

Muna smiled warmly and said something, gesturing for Buccaneer to tell him. “She says, ‘you will be like a son to her now.’”

“Oh.” The tears he’d been blinking back before spilled out before he could stop them. It didn’t seem to matter that he was an adult--though he’d only been able to call himself one for a short time--Muna folded him warmly in her arms and held him close, soothing him with soft shushing sounds that needed no translating.

\---

A season turned into seasons and seasons to years, and seven years later Miles was still found living amongst the Ursai. In the summer he was content, and in the winters he was grateful, but an aching loneliness set in with the cold. The Ice Queen he’d hallucinated was easy to banish from his mind except when the wind howled a certain way or the snow swirled in a dance and a piercing stab of cold went through his heart.

The air was never truly warm in the northern mountains, but there was still no chill of winter in the wind yet when Miles stopped in splitting wood and watched the hawks circling against the stunningly blue sky above. He jumped when a hand pressed his shoulder. 

“Beautiful aren’t they?” Muna asked, smiling knowingly at him. Over the years she had learned a little Amestrian and he had learned Ursai, perhaps still a bit clumsily, but they communicated well with each other.

“Yeah,” he wiped his forehead, and glanced back at the two circling forms. “Are these the same pair as last year?” The birds all looked the same to him, even after all this time, but the Ursai swore they were distinct.

“Yes, I think so.” Muna was shading her eyes, watching them. “They travel to distant lands over the year and meet here again every summer. And every summer they dance their ritual mating dance to show their enduring love.”

“Amazing how they always find each other.”

“Hmm.” Muna looked at him, a twinkle in her dark eyes. “They fill many a young heart with longing.”

“Oh?” He tried not to look exasperated, as she eyed him thoughtfully. At five and twenty, he was reaching the upper edge of what the Ursai called the “searching years” and while there was no requirement there were heavy expectations that he would choose a life partner by the end of the summer season.

“Not all,” she said, still smiling, “but many.” She tilted her head slightly to a group of young women working together on the carcass of a bear so that no part of it will be wasted. “They like to watch you work, you know.”

He stared at her without looking over to the women. He had felt their eyes on his bare back and chest; he knew that he was attractive--desirable even--for his dark skin, lean and muscular build, and distinctive red eyes. He stood out, an exotic figure in their midst. 

“I heard you turned down another three women last week.”

“It was only two,” he protested, knowing he was playing right into her hands. 

“Do our women not appeal to you?”

“It isn’t that,” he murmured, feeling tired. “They’re wonderful, lovely, capable, fierce, it’s only that my heart-” belongs to another? Hurts when I remember a hallucination I had when I was freezing to death? There is no way he could think of to end that sentence or explain the way he felt. 

“What the heart chooses is not for us to question,” Muna said softly, “I think perhaps a faulty assumption has been made. It is not the love of women you seek, is it?”

“What?” 

“For a man to love another man is less often seen, but no less valuable or precious a love.”  
“Oh.” He felt a bit of warmth at her soft assurance and the way she was still regarding him lovingly, but he had to shake his head. “It isn’t that either, I cannot explain it, but whenever I attempt to make such a connection there is something that stops me.”

“Ah.” Muna regarded the birds above them in silence for a long moment. “For some, that is the way of it. Connections come later or not at all, and there is no shame in that either. You’ll forgive the intrusion of an old woman, won’t you? I had only thought--hoped, even--that you and my son-”

“You are not an old woman,” Miles shook his head at her cheeky smile, “and though I can see why you might think that, I must confess I enjoy watching him attempt to stutter his way through speaking to women far too much to try and sway his affections for myself.”

Muna laughed at his comment. “Ah, so he _ is _ still too shy. A pity, I was rather hoping for grandchildren before I join the ancestors.”

“Don’t give up hope, he may yet meet a woman who finds his silence endearing.”

Muna snorted. “What a woman that will be.”

The hawks above continued circling and Miles let his eyes follow their dark shapes in elegant circles. At times they grew so far apart they nearly appeared to be separated but they always found their way back to one another. His heart throbbed with the stab of sharp ice that always plagued him in the winter. He winced and touched his chest.

Muna’s sharp eyes caught the gesture at once. “Are you in pain?”

He shook his head, dropping his hand, “no, it’s only the twinge of a memory. Nothing more.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! 
> 
> Please let me know what you think in the form of kudos, a comment, or both. :)


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